Dropping In
by YukinaLoveStories
Summary: In the final battle against Madra Tsunade decides that there is no was the Allied Shinobi Forces can win. In order to save the world she sends Sakura and Naruto back in time to stop the war before it happens. Sakura goes back a bit further than intended to make some changes that will change the world for better or for worse.
1. Prologue

An explosion sounded somewhere in the distance, but Sakura was more concerned with the one falling from the sky right in front of her. This must be the end she thought as she closed her eyes. She was too tired and had used up too much chakra and she was sure she was going to die. The blast came but instead of the pain she expected there was a tugging sensation. A sensation that told her she was very much NOT dead. She opened her eyes, "Shisho?"

The hokage looked down at her, "You're dying yet, Sakura. I thought I'd taught you better than that. Besides I have something I need you to do." Tsunade stopped and pulled her down behind a rock where Naruto was already waiting.

"Baa-chan, I need to get back to the fighting. We're losing. They need me and Kuarma."

Tsunade dismissed Naruto's whining. "Listen to me you two," she commanded tiredly, "There is no way that we are going to win this."

"Baa-chan-" She silenced Naruto with a glare.

"So I have something I need you to do."

"Shisho, I'm practically out of chakra. I am useless. I don't think that there is anything I can do." Sakura dispared.

"I can give her some of my chakra, baa-chan," Naruto volunteered.

"Both of you, quiet!" Tsunade yelled, her roar drowned out by another explosion. "I am going to release my yin seal and send the two of you back in time." The two young ninja starred at her. "Now that I finally have you silent I will explain as much as I can. This is a forbidden technique that was sealed by the first hokage. I need you two to go back and pick a time together and then prevent this," she gestured to the ongoing war.

Naruto turned stony any hint of grin gone from his face. He grabbed Sakura's hand, "When we first meet Kakashi?"

Sakura closed her fingers around his, "When we first meet Kakashi," she agreed.

Tsunade nodded as another explosion shook the ground. She tiredly surveyed the scene, "Good, according the scroll you will be engulfed in darkness and then you will be transported to the time you think about." She reached out and hugged Sakura, "Both of you be safe and change the world." The sounds of explosions were getting closer as the hokage started the complex sequence of seals.

A high pitched sound from above caused Sakura to look up. It's really the end this time she thought as the bomb came whizzing down. In the split second before the bomb hit Tsunade completed her last seal and Naruto's hand was ripped from Sakura's and then there was darkness.

Sakura looked around. She was alone. She needed to think about the first time she met Kakashi., when team 7 first go together. She needed to do like her shisho asked and change the world. And that was the when she knew that she needed to go back further than what she and Naruto had agreed on. What had caused Sasuke to leave? What had caused an entire clan to die out leaving Konoha crippled? The Uchiha massacre. If she could stop it then maybe there would be hope for the clan.

She remembered exactly where she was that day. She remembered seeing Danzo kill Shisui as little girl out by the playground. Of course she hadn't realized the significance of it till years later when the massacre was explained to her and Naruto. Sakura did the best thing she could and though of the day that she was playing out by the hokage building. She felt a tug behind her navel and with that she was pulled back into the past.


	2. Chapter 1

Sakura's head pounded like that time that Shisho had talked her into getting drunk on sake. She sat up in bed and put her forehead on her knees. God it was really painful. She grabbed at the back of her head and what? Long hair? She scrambled out of bed and over to her mirror. She was a child, in her childhood room and oh my god she had gone back in time. Her head pounded as memories came back to her.

"Sakura, are you up?"

She had never thought that hearing her mother's voice would make her burst into tears. It was probably the fact that she hadn't been on good terms with her parents since she had passed the shinobi exam.

"Yes," she called down, trying to remember how she acted when she was this age, which was difficult because her voice was so high and was clearly impairing her ability to think correctly.

Her mother called up again and interrupted train of thought; maybe this was why they didn't have a good relationship, because her mother couldn't give a person even a second of quiet. "Your father and I are about to leave, breakfast is on the table." Sakura called down a thank you and decided that her mother's voice wouldn't move her almost to tears in the future.

She got dressed and moved down the stairs to the kitchen while contemplating how she was going to keep Danzo from starting the Uchiha massacre.

She could drag him off saying that there was a bleeding ninja and she needed to get help, but when he came and he saw no ninja there would be a problem. She could always get some blood from the hospital since she knew where they kept it and send him a wild goose chase looking for a wounded ninja. She put her dishes in the sink and groaned. She was going to have to wait five years before her and Naruto could meet up and until then she would have to act like meek, weak, fangirl Sakura to keep from altering the future too much before Naruto came back and when he did he was going to kill her.

Hours later Sakura stood behind a tree masking her chakra (which would have alerted Danzo since she still had carried back her chakra and it would seem suspicious for an eight year old to have so much chakra) waiting for the real mastermind behind the Uchiha massacre. Earlier that day she had gotten into the hospital under the pretense of seeing a family member and stolen some blood from the storeroom, then she had opened the bag in a corner and splattered it around to look like a wounded shinobi had been laying there. She had disposed of the bag in an entirely different location and had gone to wait for her target. Soon enough Shisui came out of the hokage building looking around nervously, Danzo close behind him. Once Shisui was out of sight she made her move.

"Help! Help please!" she stumbled out of her hiding place and ran straight into Danzo and grabbed his robe with her bloody hands. "Please help sir, there is a hurt man over here. He's bleeding really bad." Danzo tried to shake her off, but Sakura held on determinedly. "He's got a headband I think he's a ninja." That got Danzo's attention as well as seemed to make him collect himself.

"Show me where," he commanded looking down the road to where Shisui had gone. He obviously seemed to think that there would be enough time to get to the man before he could use his sharingan on the Uchiha clan and report back to the hokage. Sakura made more fake tears as she pulled Danzo toward her fake crime scene and silently thanked her shisho for teaching her how to fool men. "Where is he," he asked curtly. Sakura didn't answer, but pointed toward the corner where she had strategically placed the blood. Danzo removed her hand a little more gently this time and moved over to where the blood was. With a hand sign two anbu guards were summoned. Sakura continued her crying and silently calculated how much time had passed. By this point Shisui would be making his way back to the hokage, so she just needed to keep her act up a little while longer.

One of the anbu guards noticed her and seemed to as Danzo about her. "One of you take her to the hospital and get her sent home, she looks like a civilian, and one of you see if you can find any more information about our missing ninja. I'll go back to the tower and check mission reports."

Sakura internally did a happy dance as the anbu in the monkey mask picked her up and made his way to the hospital. If Danzo did what he said he would then he would totally miss his chance to start the Uchiha massacre without too many questions. Sakura just hoped that what she did wouldn't change the future too much.

Five years had passed and Sakura was getting increasingly worried that her actions hadn't changed anything or worse that her actions had prevented Naruto from coming back in time. Her new childhood was almost identical to her first the only difference was that the Uchiha clan was alive and well. They fit in like they had always been there and that there hadn't been any source of friction between them and the other communities, but she still worried that her actions had changed something too much.

The first couple of years had been fine, but she had forgotten what it was like to be so isolated form her peers and to have no friends. Not only was she ostracized for her wide forehead and her civilian lineage, but now she also felt apart from those around her because she knew that she was intellectually more developed and she knew things that they never would. If Naruto never came back then she was going to go insane pretending that she was a less than average shinobi with fangirl tendencies when in reality all she wanted to do was something way more challenging than what the academy had to offer and she really wanted to punch Sasuke through the roof with all her chakra.

Today being the day of the shinobi final exam and the day before Naruto was supposed to come back made her anxiety worse than usual. She was hidden in a corner outside the examination room since she wanted to provide some sort of silent encouragement for Naruto. She watched him come out of the room looking downtrodden and she wanted to wrap little Naruto in a hug and tell him that he was going to be one of the greatest shinobi ever, when all the sudden a smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth as he jumped out the window.

Sakura was stunned that smirk was exactly like the ones that Naruto did all the time in the past/future. Was he back too and just playing her or was her mind playing tricks on itself since she was so nervous about seeing him tomorrow. She had almost dismissed it when Iruka sensei came out of the room, "I don't understand it was like he purposefully messed up. He had the perfect mold of chakra to do it and everything, but it somehow failed I don't even understand how he managed to mess it up."

Sakura sat in silence and watched the teacher duo stroll out of the room. If Naruto was back then maybe he wouldn't be too mad at her or maybe she was going insane and imagining weird things because she couldn't cope with the thought of being forever alone in the past. Sakura watched the white haired sensei back track and jump out of the window Naruto had left out of and decided to go home early and face the wrath of her mother.

A couple of hours of her mother screaming at her would remove all traces of thoughts about Naruto from her head. Although she and her mother never had that good of a relationship in her past life, it was worse in this one. The combination of her being a shinobi and the fact that she sometimes forgot that she wasn't exactly an adult that was capable of taking care of herself which caused many arguments between her and her mother who claimed that the academy was 'changing her' and 'turning her into an adult before her time' and other such rubbish. Honestly when Naruto came back the first thing she would do was inform her parents that passing the shinobi exam made her and adult and that under the laws of the city she could live on her own, when in reality she would force Naruto to let her crash at his place until they got payed from their A rank mission.

She stopped outside the door and tied on her forehead protector, it was show time.

Naruto was wondering what the hell had happened. Last time he had stolen the scroll he hadn't seen any sort of ninja until he encountered Iruka sensei. This time, however, he had had a hard time shaking off the two anbu that had come after him. It was troubling, but made him glad that he had decided to come back a day early to 'learn' his famous shadow clone technique. He slumped down in the forest breathing hard and waited for Iruka to show up. He didn't know what had happened, but he was pretty sure that Sakura was going to blame him for coming back a day early.


	3. Chapter 2

This was the morning, Sakura thought. Today she would see Naruto for the first time in five years. Not even her mother's yelling this morning could distract her from that factoid. Today was the day that she and Naruto would get paired with Sasuke, which maybe should have been her biggest worry. How would she and Naruto be able to work with that egocentric, backstabbing prick. Even without the murder of his entire clan he was still sullen with his only goal being surpassing Itachi. God, how did she used to think that he hung the moon? He was so boring and stupid. Besides it would be creepy for her to have a crush on him no anyways seeing as he was thirteen and she was about 21 if she added on the years she had spent as a child.

Sakura looked around to see who else was in the vicinity of the academy and spotted Naruto. "Naruto," she called out still in her young Sakura persona.

Naruto's head popped up, a giant smile appearing on his face. "Sakura!" he waved excitedly and then as an afterthought added "chan." Liked he'd called her in their childhood.

Sakura smirked and walked up to him still in her young Sakura persona and watched him squirm as he started to wonder which Sakura he was talking to. She punched his arm, "You need to be a better actor Naruto, imagine if that wasn't… well… me."

He rubbed his arm where her chakra infused punch had hit. "Well if I didn't know it was you before I sure know now." They both smiled and Sakura reveled in how good it felt to have someone who really knew her. Naruto's grin faded somewhat as they made their way to the classroom, "Listen Sakura, I think there is something wrong I came back yesterday to make sure I learned that Shadow Clone Jutsu, and-" he was cut off by Ino poking her head out of the door.

"Hey loser, forehead, hurry up Iruka-sensei is about to call out team assignments."

"Later," Sakura promised as the two of them made their way up to the back row with the only two seats open and sat behind Sasuke.

"Hey is it really okay for us to not be in the same place," Naruto asked.

"It should be fine since we plan on changing the future anyway," she whispered back. "Honestly I think that we shouldn't try too hard to stick to what happened last time as long as we don't change anything so drastically that we can't tell what will happen next."

"About that Sakura, I think something is wrong-" he was cut off again this time by Iruka calling out team assignments.

Sakura was pretty sure at this point that Naruto knew that some part of the past was changed but judging by his demeanor he believed that it was something that he had done. She didn't relish the thought of breaking the news to him that she was actually the one to change things so much.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by Iruka calling Sasuke's name. Apparently their seating had already changed some things since the next name he called out was Naruto's and he didn't have to fake his pout at being put in the same team as Sasuke.

"I pity the person who has to be put with you two to keep you from each other's throats," she said playfully.

Iruka called out her name, "Well I guess it's time for you to pity yourself," Naruto smirked. Ino growled at Sakura from in front of the duo. And Sakura waved her fingers at her longtime frenemy in a sarcastic manner.

Nobody noticed Shikamaru's confusion at the duo's antics. In fact no one but Shikamaru seemed to think that there was anything strange about how the two were suddenly acting like good friends. In the end he decided that it was too troublesome to focus on and decided to ignore them.

One by one jonin instructors came into the room to get their teams until only team seven was left. Naruto got up and got an eraser to sick in the door. He turned and looked at Sakura silently questioning.

"Go ahead, it won't be that funny but whatever."

He grinned and proceeded to place the eraser in the doorway, "It's symbolic."

"Sure it is," she drawled.

Naruto pouted.

Sakura smirked.

Sasuke ignored the both of them and brooded like they weren't there.

They waited for another two hours, during which Sakura and Naruto had played hangman, until Kakashi walked through the door, a cloud of chalk dust coating his presence. He said one sentence, "Let's meet on the roof," and the disappeared.

"That was pretty symbolic," Sakura deadpanned as the trio made their way to the roof.

"It represents my refusal to conform to society," Naruto insisted.

They grinned and looked behind them at Sasuke who was obviously scowling at the fact that a jonin with such bad reflexes was going to be their teacher. Sakura and Naruto locked eyes it was obvious that it was going to be tiring to go about this ways for a long time.

They sat down in front of Kakashi who was reading Icha Icha Paradise. They waited for ten minutes before he finally looked up. "Introduce yourselves." They stared blankly back at him.  
"You know, your likes, dislikes, hobbies, hopes and dreams etc.," he elaborated.

"You first," Sakura pushed, "We know about each other and you probably know basic info from your files, but none of us know anything about you." This was technically a lie because she and Naruto probably knew more about Kakashi than anyone else in the village except maybe Genma.

Kakashi put his book down and sighed. "My likes and dislikes… My hobbies… I have many, and my hopes and dreams well I don't feel like telling you that." He pointed to Sakura, "You first."

She sighed, Kakashi would always be Kakashi. "My name is Sakura Haruno. I like sweet things and I don't like waking up early. I hate egotistical prats." She watched Kakashi's eyes widen and Naruto hold in a laugh. "My hobbies are avoiding my parents and practicing ninja techniques. As for my dream, I hope to become strong enough to protect the village form anything." Well at least that would be an introduction to remember.

Naruto shot up straight, "Naruto Uzumaki. I like ramen. I dislike not having ramen, and I hate when people think that I am a dropout. My hobbies include running from the authorities after pulling pranks and comparing ramen. My dream is to become hokage and possibly own a ramen shop." Kakashi seemed to expect most of the answers except for the running from the authorities one, which his eye widened comically.

Sakura and Naruto silently decided that they'd have to keep him on his toes.

Sasuke seemed to be pretending that he hadn't heard anything. Kakashi prompted him and he sullenly began, "Sasuke Uchiha. I don't like anything. I dislike dropouts who think that they can become powerful without working hard. I have no hobbies. My dream is to surpass my brother Itachi and prove that I am stronger to my clan."

Naruto's gasped at Sasuke's allusion to his clan. Did it mean that they were alive? He went back over his speech and stopped. Wait did Sasuke call him a dropout? "Sakura hold my headband I have to fight this idiot."

Sakura giggled and pulled Naruto's arm causing him to fall on his butt. "Down boy." She infused chakra into her arm to keep him pinned as he repeatedly tried to get up and punch Sasuke.

Kakashi coughed and directed attention towards himself. "Tomorrow will be our first training exercise we will be practicing survival technique. Don't eat breakfast or you'll throw it up." And with that he left, incredibly confused since his files had stated that Sakura was a Sasuke fangirl and hated Naruto and suddenly the exact opposite had happened. Kakashi shrugged it off; it was simply a case of miss communication.

Sasuke got up and left without so much as a backwards glance at his two team mates.

"So," Naruto started from his position on the ground, "Something happened with the Uchiha clan. I think that it's related to last night when I stole the sealed scroll. It was two anbu who chased after me and they were incredibly hard to derail before Iruka found me." He looked at Sakura's stony face and misinterpreted it as anger. "Please don't be mad that I came back a day early."

Sakura laughed nervously, "Um about that. I'm sorry Naruto, it's my fault." Seeing his confused face she elaborated. "I thought that maybe one of the events that fueled the war was the Uchiha massacre which crippled Konoha and caused both Itachi and Sasuke to leave, so I went back to the day it happened and stopped Danzo from killing Shisui."

"Naruto patted her head, "It's okay Sakura. It seems like you changed just enough. Though Sasuke is still a prat."

Sakura laughed and pulled her best friend off the ground, "Come one help me move my stuff and then we need to talk about tomorrow."

"What are we moving?"

"Everything I own. I can't stand to live with my mother anymore, and honestly this time around I don't think I have that patience."

He looked slightly confused, "Where to?"

"Your place," she said as if it was obvious.

"Whoa, Sakura wait. Think this through, I woke up in my apartment yesterday and it is filthy like a you thirteen year old has been living there." He saw her serious expression as she tugged him through the streets to her childhood house. "At least let me clean it first!"

Sakura laughed she had definitely missed having Naruto around. She was glad to have her best friend back.


	4. Chapter 3

Sakura and Naruto had spent most of the night moving Sakura's stuff in. She had pulled him through her window and forced him to help her move her possessions into a storage scroll until all that was left was the furniture and then left a note telling her mother that since she was legally an adult she didn't have to put up with her shit anymore and would live elsewhere.

While Sakura cleaned the apartment Naruto made room for her stuff in his room and set up a bed on the couch until they could get another bed. Unfortunately by the time morning came around they had both gotten minimal sleep and hadn't talked about what they would do for the bell test.

Since Kakashi was always three hours late the two had decided to have ramen for breakfast at Ichiraku's and then show up about an hour before Kakashi was due to arrive. "So I'm tired, your tired and neither of us want to fight Kakashi," Sakura said in between bites, "You can make a shadow clone for me and you and then we can sit in a tree covered by one of my minor genjutsus until he calls time for lunch. Then we just have to feed whoever he ties to the post and boom we pass."

Naruto slurped up noodles, "Good plan. It's almost time, let's leave."

"You two are late," Sasuke berated them when they showed up, "Don't you take this seriously."

"Sensei isn't even here yet," Sakura said at the same time Naruto snarked, "I don't take anything seriously."

Sasuke glared and didn't speak up until Kakashi showed up. Sakura didn't pay much attention of Kakashi's explanation of the test until the end. "We just need to get two bells," she asked making sure to pitch her voice so it sounded incredulous in an attempt to annoy her teacher.

Kakashi remained unperturbed, "Yes."

Naruto grinned, "Piece of cake."

"Ready, Set, Go!"

All three ninja dispersed. Sasuke hid in a tree and Sakura grabbed Naruto and put a genjutsu that would make anyone look away from them and not notice they were there and hid themselves in a opposite tree while Naruto made a couple of shadow clones to reenact their first bell test. As Kakashi fought off Naruto's shadow clones, Sakura made a single clone herself and used it to reenact as well. Naruto pulled out a bag of chips and offered some to Sakura as they watched their sensei fight their shadow clones without realizing that none of them were actually his students.

They watched as Sasuke struck out at Kakashi's back and their sensei in turn use the replacement technique. Sakura giggled, "How long do you think it will be until Kakashi pulls him under ground."

"Less than a minute I bet."

Sakura giggled again. "Oh he just trapped my clone in a genjutsu. It's Sasuke dead. If only." She tilted her head eyes far away as she watched the experience through her clone's eyes. "Shit I accidently made the clone laugh. Let's hope he doesn't catch that," she said as she returned to her surroundings.

They watched from the tree as Kakashi set up the trap for Naruto with the bells and made a clone walk into the trap. Kakashi bent down and picked up the bells and then gave the clone a light hit. The duo laughed uncontrollably as their sensei's eye widened comically as the clone disappeared in a puff of smoke. The watched his posture change as he carefully picked up the bells and hooked them back on his belt.

"You wanna end this?" Sakura questioned, "It's getting close to lunch."

"I'll bring my clone around, you ready?" he asked and she nodded.

She had her clone turn into the bells and did a modified version of their first fight with Zabuza. Naruto clone picked up the transformed Sakura and made his way to the clearing and did a little one on one with Kakashi. After a couple minutes of fighting he let Kakashi lad a hid on him that made the clone hit a tree, with a little help from Sakura's genjutsu it made it look like the clone was the real Naruto, and made the transformed land by their sensei's feet. Kakashi looked down and spotted the bells he bent down to grab them and Sakura released her transformation and had her clone kick him in the jaw and take the real bells. Her and Naruto's clone's each took a bell and raised them in victory.

Kakashi pushed himself off the ground as Sasuke came in the clearing covered in the dirt and the bell for lunch rang. In the tree the real Sakura and Naruto nodded at each other and released their clones. The looks on Kakashi's face were getting increasingly amusing and this time his jaw could be seen dropping underneath his mask.

Sakura released her genjutsu and the duo dropped from the tree. "Did we do okay Kakashi sensei?" she asked innocently as Naruto passed he the bag of chips nonchalantly.

Kakashi seemed to regain his senses, "I wasn't aware that you knew the shadow clone jutsu, Sakura."

"Oh that? Naruto taught me yesterday as a peace offering of sorts."

Kakashi led them back to the posts, "Unfortunately none of you pass."

"Excuse me? We got the bells just like you asked," Naruto asked in fake anger.

"Yes, but only the two of you worked together."

"There were only two bells," Sakura deadpanned as she tried to keep from giggeling.

Kakashi yelled at them the same speech he had given long ago about how ninja need to work together. "Ninja who break the rules are scum, but ninja who abandon their comrades are even worse scum," he ended as he tied Sasuke to the post and walked off after telling them that they'd have another chance after lunch.

Naruto and Sakura opened their bento boxes and Sasuke's stomach growled. "I guess we'll just have to share," Sakura said pretending to think. "You probably didn't eat breakfast, but we did plus we've been snacking all morning."

She tried to move her chopsticks toward his mouth but Sasuke moved his mouth away, "No way am I going to eat."

"You need your strength," she tried again.

He moved his mouth away, "You heard Kakashi, under no circumstances are you to feed me."

Sakura sighed, "Naruto hold his mouth open, I'll feed him."

"Why don't I get the chopsticks?" he whined even as he began to hold Sasuke's head in place.

"Because you'd just stab him with them, I know you haven't forgiven him for the dropout comment," She eyed Naruto who was trying to look innocent while she fed their teammate.

They'd barely gotten a few bites in when the sky darkened and clouded over and the wind picked up. Kakashi appeared in the middle of the whirlwind yelling at them, "You all… pass," he finished happily as the genjutsu was disbanded.

"Well that's a relief," Naruto murmured as he tried to look like he had actually been scared.

"Well that's all well and good," Kakashi said like he had never been yelling in the first place. "I need to go submit a mission report and our first mission is tomorrow. Let's meet at 9:00 on the bridge."

Kakashi left Sakura and Naruto walking away discussing going to train and Sasuke tied to the post sulking and disappeared in a swirl of leaves. He reappeared on the roof of the hokage building. He made his way down the side of the building and through the window to find Asuma and Kurenai already waiting to tell the hokage how their first day was.

Asuma went first, "Nothing unusual they all have solid bases, but it will take a while for them to work together." He shrugged, "Though I'm guessing it's not really my team you wanted to hear about."

Kurenai was prompted by the hokage. "Kiba and Shino have no problems other than inexperience. Hinata has some serious confidence issues caused by her father from what I saw when I went to the compound to make sure he was okay with the clan's heir going on missions only to find that he has already lost hope in his daughter. No more to report," she ended formally.

All eyes turned to Kakashi, "Sasuke is exactly like the reports from Iruka said: he is sullen and refuses help from his teammates and wants to do everything simply to surpass his brother." Kakashi paused.

"What is it, Kakashi?" the hokage prompted.

"It seems that both Naruto and Sakura are not what the reports said," he began cautiously. The hokage motioned for him to continue. "Naruto seems to have learned the shadow clone technique the day that he stole the scroll."

"Iruka reported that," the hokage dismissed.

"But he taught it to Sakura within the short amount of time that he has known it. They also seem like really good friends who know each other well when Iruka's report said that Sakura hated Naruto and was like a fangirl for Sasuke. Now, though, she is acting almost the opposite."

"You are holding something back, Kakashi."

"They got the bells on the first try," he let out.

"They worked together on the first try?" the hokage asked incredulously.

"No, only Sakura and Naruto, and they literally got the bells. They used shadow clones on me the whole time and I didn't realize that it wasn't really them till after they had gotten the bells and then they disappeared. They had been hiding in a tree since the very beginning and I, a jonin, didn't realize that they had been in the tree till they disbanded their genjutsu and jumped down."

The hokage sighed, "It is not totally implausible. Tsunade and Jiraiya never showed much promise until they were introduced to each other and became friends, but just in case keep an eye on them."

Kakashi's mouth formed a thin line, "Yes, hokage."


	5. Chapter 4

The next morning Sakura and Naruto made their way to the east bridge at 11:30, thirty minutes before they knew Kakashi would arrive. Sasuke was not pleased. "Really is this how you're going to act? If you don't take this seriously, just drop out. I don't need you guys bringing me down."

"Sorry," Sakura deadpanned, "There was a drowning fish on the side of the road, so Naruto and I stopped to help it. All life is important you know."

Naruto coughed into his fist, disguising a laugh. He was pretty sure that Kakashi had used that exact same excuse before in the past. Sasuke, however, did not see the humor in her response, "Are you stupid?"

Sakura didn't even pretend to look offended, a reaction she knew Sasuke had hoped for, "Stupid? No, if I was stupid, then I wouldn't have been able to get the best grades at the academy."

Sasuke simply grunted and move away from his two teammates.

"Wasn't it your idea that we should be less mean to him? Ya know, so that he doesn't go looking for Orochimaru," Naruto whispered to her.

Sakura huffed and blew a few wisps of hair that had escaped her bun, "I'm sorry, but now that I'm no longer fangirling over him all his flaws and jack assedness really stand out. Plus it's really hard to dissociate this Sasuke with our Sasuke. Honestly, I'm surprised with your self-control and how you didn't make a jab at him as soon as we arrived."

Naruto saw the way Sakura's jaw was set and decided it was time to take action. "How about we make a bet," he watched her eyes light up, she really was her Shisho's student, "If you insult him again today then we get to have ramen for dinner, but if I end up being the one then I will be your sparring partner for taijutsu."

Sakura's eyes lit up, "Deal."

Before the two could discuss anymore Kakashi showed up. "You're late," their emotionally constipated teammate growled. Sakura and Naruto shared a secrete smile. After all they used to be the ones always yelling at their sensei for being late.

"Sorry," Kakashi said with a smile, not looking sorry at all, "There was a drowning fish on the side of the road, so I had to help it. All life is important you know." The two time travelers burst into laughter as Sasuke looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. Kakashi looked suspiciously back and forth between his students, but eventually seemed to ignore them. "Today we are going to do some training and then we're going to get our first mission," he said with way too much enthusiasm for Sakura to believe that they were going to do 'some' training. It was more likely going to be punishment training for embarrassing him the day before.

Kakashi made a shooing motion and propelled his team to the nearest training ground. "All right my cute genins, today I want you to do ten laps around the training area, one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, and then we are going to do some taijutsu training." His eye glinted maliciously as the students took in the abnormally large training field, "That won't be a problem, will it?"

"No, sensei," they said together.

Kakashi took out his book, "What are you waiting for get going."

All three students took off. After about five laps Sakura was ready to kill someone. "Motherfucker," she cursed to herself. While she still had the chakra reserves and chakra control from her old self she still had the body of her thirteen year old self and she had been incredibly weak when she was thirteen. It's a miracle I wasn't killed this young she thought to herself.

"Sakura, what's wrong," an orange jumpsuit came into her field of vision. Naruto had already completed his ten laps being the hyperactive kid that he was. Thankfully, Sasuke was still on his fifth lap along with her so she didn't feel too bad.

"I have this weak ass body, that's what's wrong."

Naruto flinched; Sakura swearing was never a good sign. "Well, you are young," he tried to placate.

"And when I was young the only thing that was in my mind was Sasuke. In order to try at keep my cover these past few years and not change too much I didn't practice any strength or endurance training and now I'm starting to think that I'm the biggest idiot in the world." Naruto frowned. "It's fine Naruto. I'll push through no matter how painful it is. I've had worse. Go do your push-ups."

He didn't look like he wanted to leave her, but he went back to where their sensei stood anyway and began to do his push-ups.

Sakura pushed forward. If it doesn't hurt then I'm not getting stronger. If it doesn't hurt then I'm not getting stronger, she repeated to herself. She was entering her seventh lap still keeping pace a little ways behind Sasuke. She may have agreed not to insult or provoke him, but that didn't mean that she was going to lose to him by falling behind.

She blinked when he suddenly slowed his pace till he was beside her, "Having trouble there," he asked smugly as he gestured to her heavy breathing, he was unfortunately breathing just fine.

Sakura took a deep breath to calm herself, she would not snark at him. "Yes," she admitted, "I haven't been working on endurance lately." She watched him about to insult her for it, but interrupted him, "Because I've been working on my chakra control lately, as well as learning several genjutsus and elemental techniques." There let him stew on that she thought.

Sasuke continued to jog beside her until they finished their tenth lap and then moved over to do their push and sit-ups. Naruto, of course, had already finished his set and was now playing a hang game with one of his shadow clones.

Once all three genin were done Kakashi removed his head from his book. "Who wants to go first?"

"I wanna fight Sasuke," Naruto yelled.

Kakashi sighed, "You can't keep this rivalry up between one of your teammates, it'll impair your performance. Didn't you learn anything yesterday?"

"I don't want to fight him because of a rivalry."

"Then why do you want to fight him?" he asked dryly.

"Because I don't want to fight Sakura."

"I know you two are good friends, but it's not like you're going to severely injure her," Kakashi misinterpreted Naruto's look.

Said ninja sighed, "I don't want to fight her 'cause she'll kick my ass."

"What?" Kakashi was confused enough that he didn't even correct the young teen on his bad language.

"Nobody wants to fight Sakura," he insisted.

Kakashi looked over at the pink haired girl who had had difficulty doing the prescribed workout and promptly dismissed any thought that Naruto was right. "First match Sakura vs Naruto."

Naruto made a comical screaming noise and Sakura simply sighed and got to her feet.

"I promise to go easy on you Naruto."

"That doesn't mean much coming from you."

Sakura smiled sweetly and Kakashi called the match to start.

Naruto threw the first punch only for Sakura to catch it in her hand and lazily throw it away. They continued to throw punches weaving around each other in a practiced fashion. Sakura lazily blocking every punch Naruto threw at her until Naruto made the mistake of going in with a too high roundhouse kick. Sakura grabbed his leg and spun him into the ground using her chakra to fuel her move. Within seconds Sakura had him on his stomach with his arms wrenched behind his head.

Naruto thrashed wildly, "I tap out! I tap out! I can't use my hands, I'm giving up."

"Winner: Sakura." Kakashi stated as his only female student pushed herself off her teammate and offered him her hand. Based on how she struggled through her physical exercises earlier he hadn't expected that from her. It hadn't looked like she had put any real power behind her punches either. She simply knew how to move to avoid getting hit and how to use her opponent's momentum to her advantage. Did he have the beginnings of a taijutsu protégé here?

He gestured to Sasuke to get up and take his position in front of Sakura. A slash of a hand through the air and the match began.

Sasuke and Sakura circled each other cautiously.

"Hey Sensei," Kakashi looked over at Naruto, "I bet fifteen that Sakura will win."

"I'm not going to bet with a child," Kakashi lectured, "Especially with my own students."

Naruto pouted but turned to watch the fight. "Only 'cause you know I'm right."

Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow at his student's antics. "Ah but look, Sasuke seems to be going in for the kill."

The two fighters had yet to throw a punch, but Sasuke was running forward his arm raised to get past Sakura's low guard and strike her face.

This won't end well, Naruto thought.

And he was right. At the last moment Sakura ducked under his punch to sock Sasuke right in the stomach.

Unfortunately for Sasuke a punch like that hurt no matter how much strength was put behind it and the added force from him pretty much running into the punch itself made it unbearable.

When Sakura removed her fist he dropped to the ground and vomited.

Kakashi sighed and Naruto kept nudging him to look at Sasuke. Sakura for her part looked sheepish. "I don't think I broke anything."

Kakashi buried his head in his hands. This was not what he had signed up for. He had taken this position as a jounin instructor because he felt that he owed it to Minato and because Itachi had asked him to look after his little brother. This was more than I should have to deal with, he thought.

"Once Sasuke finished puking, we are going to the Hokage building to get our first mission."


	6. Chapter 5

Once Sasuke had ceased puking, Sakura offered him her hand which he pushed away as he continued glaring at her. She sighed, but didn't push it. Inside her mind however she was wondering how they could function as a team if he took every victory of another as a personal affront to himself.

Naruto snagged her arm and pulled her to the front of their small group. "Come on Sakura! Let's lead. Like the engine of the train, the front of the mullet, the-"

Sakura clamped her hand over his mouth, "I get the picture, Naruto, now please shut up."

"Do you even know how to get there, Naruto?" Kakashi asked from behind him.

"You obviously don't realize how many times I've been called to the hokage office after pranks, also it's the only big round tower in the middle of the village so I think I had a fairly good idea where I am going."

Sakura slapped him on the back of the head sans chakra. "Stop being such a smart ass to your teacher."

"Are you really going to lecture me on that? Because I'll pull all my receipts. Like that one time as the park where-" Sakura creatively used his headband to gag him.

The quartet continued on in silence except for the sound of Sasuke's brooding. Who spent the entire time all the way into the missions office with his hands in his pockets and a blank stare on his face.

"There are only two D rank jobs available right now since Gai just came in and took six, so you can choose to between finding Tora the cat, or painting the TI building," The chunin at the table offered.

"Painting the TI building!" Sakura and Naruto shouted together. While volunteering to be around Morino Ibiki was suspicious neither of them wanted to spend four hours attempting to catch Tora the cat, especially since they always felt bad when they had to bring her back to the owner.

Sasuke looked at them like they were insane. Then again so did the other two ninja in the room.

"We'll take Tora-chan, please," Kakashi stated and the chunin behind the table held the scroll out.

"But Kakashi-Sensei," Naruto move in front of the proffered scroll and pleaded with his best puppy dog eyes, "Torture and Interigation."

Kakashi glared and grabbed the scroll.

"We could have been done by now," Naruto whined from the ground an hour later.

"Maybe we would have if someone hadn't chased the cat into the middle of town," Sakura glared and Naruto and Sasuke who had decided to take off running at the cat as soon as they had spotted her. "Next time lets come up with a plan, honestly you two are no better than dogs just taking off and running like that."

Naruto pointed a finger at Sasuke in accusation.

"Don't look at me dobe, it was your fault."

"Shut up teme."

Sakura looked at Naruto her expression clearly saying 'well it looks like I've won the bet'. "Next time just don't run at her. I know this trick that works well on pigs maybe it will work of cats." She paused, "Maybe we should get some catnip to, it'd be kinda like a cat version of the honey-pot."

"What?" both boys looked at her confused.

"I know you slept through class," she pointed to her best friend, "but you as well?"

"Kakashi, what's a honeypot?" Naruto was genuinely confused.

For someone who went through a war he's surprisingly innocent, she thought.

Kakashi was strangely flustered for a man who read straight porn in public, "Well you see children it is where a man or woman…uh…when they need to…" He was saved by the fortunate appearance of Tora, "Oh look there's the cat".

Sakura caught the boys by their collars as they went to run at the cat again. She glared at them and walked slowly towards the cat.

"What is she going to do?" her disgruntled teammate asked.

"Probably some cool taijutsu technique," her best friend whispered back.

"Meow," she said

Naruto did a double take, "Did she just fucking 'meow' at the cat."

Kakashi slapped him on the back of the head, "Language."

"That's it. I'm going to take care of this," Sasuke decided.

"Merrrrow?" The cat walked toward her with interest.

"What the Fuck?"

This time Kakashi slapped Sasuke.

"Meow Meow," Sakura replied softly. The cat seemed to take this as the correct answer and walked over to the pink haired girl and allowed herself to be picked up and cuddled as Sakura checked for the tell-tale pink bow that marked the cat as their target.

Kakashi watched the exchange, "Unfucking believeable."

"Language," Sakura reprimanded as she came back with the cat, "Are we ready to go?" She began to walk to the hokage's office leaving her teammates to catch up.

Naruto jogged up beside her, "How did you do that?"

"Years of having to find Tonton after Tsunade got drunk and left her somewhere," she scrunched up her nose, "Although making pig noises are a lot harder and get you some very weird looks from onlookers."

Naruto grinned as he imagined his best friend running through Konoha 'oinking' in an attempt to find the lost pig.

Sakura gave him a low kick since her hands were occupied with a purring cat, "Quit imagining it."

"I can just imagine it, Sakura Haruno, legendary Tsunade's protégé apprentice running through the streets of Konoha oinking."

She knocked his legs out from underneath him.

Sakura set at the table in her and Naruto's apartment. They had left the hokage tower after delivering Tora to her overenthusiastic owner. Kakashi and Sasuke had looked horrified and obviously looked like they felt bad for the cat and Naruto had taken the opportunity to whisper "If only we had taken the TI building, then this poor cat could be free for a while longer," before the team had parted ways: Kakashi to report to the hokage, Sasuke to brood, and Sakura and Naruto to one of the less traversed training grounds.

She had forced him to stick to his promise spar with her, but she compromised and promised not to use chakra. She had then forced him to train with her until she was too tired to move and had to be carried back to their apartment. When Naruto had questioned her she had told him that she needed to push herself to her limits until she could build up a respectable amount of muscle mass that would not put her dead last in the physical department.

Currently she was going through their bills and trying to plot their spending with the limited amount of money that child services allowed Naruto and the meager money that she had brought along with her.

D rank missions inside the village were never for payment since they were things that gave back to the community like picking up trash, helping an old lady with her groceries or something similar. Occasionally someone from outside the village would request help on something easy enough that could be counted as a D rank and payment was given, but that was highly unlikely. It was one of the reasons that most ninja that couldn't make chunnin gave up, because you couldn't make a living doing gennin jobs. You either found work doing a ninja desk job or you became a civilian.

It had never bothered Sakura before as she was living off her parents and Naruto had lived off ramen, but now they were both used to having basic human amenities like shelter and palatable food and it was beginning to seem like they would be unable to live like that until they took the Wave country mission which they had been thoroughly reimbursed for by the village. Thus it looked like there was only one option.

"We need a job."

Naruto looked up from where he had been polishing his headband, "What?"

She gestured to the paper in front of her, "We don't have enough money to sustain the two of us unless we eat cheap junk, which as a medic-nin I need to remind you is not healthy for our growing bodies. Child services are clearly holding out on you since you should have money from at least one of your parents, plus in our time line I'm pretty sure Sasuke was given enough money for a maid."

Naruto looked uncomfortable, "Yea well they probably hate the fox too."

"Speaking of which have you spoken to Kurama?"

If possible he looked even more uncomfortable, "No, he's still asleep." He then changed the subject, "So how are we going to go about getting ourselves a job. We are only 12 who is going to hire us."

"You're a ninja aren't you?" She flicked his head. "We'll just henge ourselves to look older and find work in a bar or something, plus we can do some bar bets since that was one this Shisho taught me to be good at." Her eyes dimmed a bit at the recollection of her teacher but she continued on, "And I don't know about you but I really need a drink."

"Don't you know it." They sat in comfortable silence for a while before he spoke again. "What should we do about Sasuke."

Sakura rubbed her eyes, "What about him," she yawned.

"What should we do? I mean it's hard for us both to not treat him like our Sasuke, but even when we don't he still doesn't like us. He's really competitive even without his need to kill Itachi."

Sakura thought for a moment, "I'm not a psychologist or a Yamanaka, but I think no matter which time line that his parents have placed an unhealthy burden on his shoulders by having unrealistic expectations. I mean his big brother is Itachi Uchiha. He's a prodigy in every type of ninjutsu so he feels the need to catch up and be better so that his parents acknowledge him."

Naruto hummed.

"That doesn't mean I forgive him though. How many times did he try to kill me? I've lost count. I guess we should just treat him like any other person. Maybe not treat him like a child as much since as far as he's concerned we're the same ages as him and to treat him like he's younger is patronizing."

Naruto was picking at the table, showing Sakura that he had long lost interest and that she needed to finish up before she lost him completely, "As long as we build a rapport with him and keep him from Orochimaru we should be fine. I guess anyway, he was more your friend than mine."

"No way, Sakura. He lost my friendship as soon as he hurt you the first time by running away the first time."

"What? But you were always so fixated on finding him!"

He got up and pulled her into a hug, "Because you wanted him back, and if finding him was going to make you happy again, then that's what I was going to do." He pulled out of the hug, "I'm going to bed." He ruffled her hair and walked to the bed room leaving Sakura alone with her thoughts.

She stacked the financial papers together and put the kettle on the stove. Maybe some tea would calm her swirling thoughts.


	7. Chapter 6

The next morning found an incredibly sore Sakura and a bouncy Naruto trudging through the streets to the Uchiha complex.

"Ya know," she drawled, "when I said we should try to be his friend, I didn't mean that you should wake me up at an ungodly hour so that we could go as him if he wants to 'come out and play'."

Naruto continued bouncing around, "Then you should have gone to bed earlier, and we aren't asking him to play we're asking him to train with us. If we asked him to play he'd probably shut the door in our faces."

"He's probably going to shut the door in our faces anyway," she whined, "And I didn't even get to put my hair up before you dragged me out of the house." Sakura had luckily been dressed and already had her face washed this morning when Naruto had dragged her out of the house before her second cup of tea. "I haven't even had my second cup of tea yet. I'm not even awake yet."

He stopped walking abruptly and she walked into him. "Sakura, if you can whine, then you're awake. Isn't that what you always told me?"

She glared at him for using her own words against her. Suddenly she heard a slight noise in the trees. She flicked her eyes toward the noise to see an anbu member hidden in the trees on the other side of the Uchiha compound wall. "Good morning, Anbu-san." The anbu made a surprised noise that was muffled by his crow mask and disappeared.

"Yea, you're totally not awake yet you can still detect an anbu stalking us," her best friend pouted.

She linked arms with him and continued to the front gate whispering to him, "Probably not stalking, simply returning home."

His eyes widened in understanding, "You think it was Itachi?"

"Know anyone else with a crow mask?" she questioned.

He shook his head and kept quiet as they walked past the guards. Apparently they didn't deem to children as any type of threat since they didn't even question their presence.

"Some guards. Didn't even look at us."

She hip bumped him, "Oh hush, it worked to our advantage. Come on. I bet it's similar to the Hyuga compound." She nudged him down the middle road to the house the furthest back.

"When were you in the Hyuga compound?"

Sakura blushed, "Well, while you were with Jiraiya, I dated Neji for a while."

"So you have a thing for prodigies, huh?" he wagged his eyebrows, "Should I watch out for you and Itachi?" She increased her grip on his arm, but her blush stayed in place. Naruto let out a giggle, "I'll take that as a yes."

"Oh look at that we're here," she deadpanned and shoved him in front of her, "It was your idea that means that you get to knock." He looked hesitant, and she groaned, "Please don't tell me that you're scared to knock."

That got him to puff his chest, "Of course not," he knocked on the door.

A woman poked her head out, "Can I help you?"

Naruto had frozen, apparently not expecting anyone but Sasuke to answer the door, so Sakura intervened, "We were looking for Sasuke. We're his teammates and we wanted to see if he would like to come train with us."

The woman smiled brightly. "Ah well he isn't up yet. Come inside," she gestured them in, "We were just about to have a late breakfast. Have you two eaten?"

Sakura was about to lie and say they had to avoid an awkward breakfast when her stomach growled. She blushed, "I'm sorry. But he pulled me out of the house before I had time to eat."

"Well, the more the merrier. I'm Sasuke's mother by the way."

"I'm Sakura Haruno, and this is Naruto Uzumaki."

To her credit the woman didn't stiffen at the realization that she had a Jinchuriki in her house, "Mikoto Uchiha. I'll go get Sasuke up."

Mikoto disappeared around the corner and Sakura slapped Naruto upside the head, "I'm blaming you for the awkward breakfast that is most likely about to ensue."

She could see Naruto was about to start whining when Itachi Uchiha walked in with normal clothes and no visible trace that he was the anbu that they'd seen earlier. Surprise flashed across his face, before it was replaced with mild curiousity.

Sakura screamed internally. This was going to be a stressful day. She was sore and tired and she definitely didn't need and anbu ninja poking around today. The only conciliation was the free breakfast.

Naruto had seemed to overcome whatever bought of shyness that he'd had earlier and bounded up to Itachi. "Hi, I'm Naruo. I'm a teammate of Sasuke-teme."

Sakura hit him on the head for what seemed the millionth time that day, "Don't call him that."

Naruto whined about giving him brain damage and she ignored him to address Itachi, "Sorry about him. He brought us here so early that Mikoto invited us to breakfast." She didn't want to say 'your mother invited us' since she wasn't supposed to know who Itachi was and didn't know if it would be reasonable to assume that he was Mikoto's son.

He looked to be thinking, "I'm Itachi, Sasuke's older brother," he said slowly as Mikoto reappeared with Sasuke in tow.

"What are you doing here?" Sasuke pointed at Naruto clearly disgruntled.

"Be nice," Mikoto reprimanded whilst she sat the table and gestured for everyone to sit down. The head of the table left empty since Fugaku was gone. Itachi sat to the head's right, Sasuke to the left, Naruto next to Sasuke, and Mikoto at the end leaving Sakura to sit by Itachi.

"It's okay, oba-san, he's probably grumpy because we made him wake up early," Naruto grinned.

Sasuke scanned his eyes across the table and jerked his head back a bit at the sight of Sakura as if he was most surprised to see her there, "What's wrong with you?" he gestured to her body with his chopstick and Sakura guessed he meant her outfit.

As Itachi reprimanded his brother for being rude and for pointing with his chopsticks Sakura assessed herself. She _was_ less put together than normal. Her normal pristine appearance was a big difference from today's outfit. Her hair was down, something he hadn't seen in a while, and her clothes were different. To be honest she was wearing her comfy clothes which consisted of one of Naruto's black t-shirts that had gotten too small for them and some of Naruto's baggy pants that she'd modified to cinch in at the ankles, far different from her usual black and red getup.

"Blame him," she jerked her thumb at Naruto he couldn't wait another hour before we came to get you. You are going to train with us right?" She tilted her head to the side innocently.

He looked like he was about to decline but a sharp look from his brother and mother kept him quiet and for once Sakura was glad that Itachi was present.

"Of course he wants to go. He doesn't go out with friends very often," Mikoto cooed. Sasuke began to eat faster in an attempt to escape his mother who kept telling embarrassing stories of him.

By the end of the meal Mikoto had Sakura almost in tears as she told funny stories of Sasuke from his childhood. She'd dotingly decline Sakura's offer to help clean up and pushed all the children to the door telling them to go have fun.

Team 7 sat down together to pull their sandals on. They were almost out the door when Itachi pulled his sandals on as well and offered to help with their training. Sasuke immediately refused to make eye contact with his brother and did his brood-pout thing leaving Sakura to accept his offer and continue to training ground 3, where Kakashi had taken them for the bell test.

"What did you plan to work on," Itachi asked, when he finally spoke.

Sakura stopped her bickering with Naruto, "We figured that we'd let Sasuke pick since yesterday we got my specialty."

He smiled, "And what might that be?"

She smirked and looked up at him, "Taijutsu." Sasuke flinched and Naruto snickered at him.

Itachi laughed and Sakura's heart beat a little faster, "You don't look like a taijutsu expert."

"That's because I'm not an expert. I'm just a child."

"You still kicked Sasuke-teme's ass though." Sakura sighed; she should just give up on trying to fix his language around impressionable children.

Sasuke's face went red, "You got your ass kicked too, dobe."

"My fight didn't end in one move."

The looked like they were about to come to blows, so Sakura distracted them, "Anyway, what do you want to work on, Sasuke?"

The dark headed gennin seemed shocked that she had included him and pondered for a moment to find something that he knew he was the best at based on their performances at the academy. "Weapons training, I guess."

Itachi studied his brother, "But you hate weapons training."

Sasuke just shrugged a his brother there was no way he was going to tell him that he'd picked it because he knew that he was the best at it courtesy of his clans intense throwing exercises.

An hour later Sasuke was regretting his choice. Naruto had a good throwing accuracy. Not 100% accurate, but enough that it would never be a problem in the field. Currently Itachi was helping him by giving him some tips.

Sakura is who was annoying him right now. Much like yesterday he had underestimated her. When they had arrived she'd asked Itachi if she could borrow one of his senbons and then expertly twisted her hair into a bun atop her head. She'd then begun throwing exercised on the trees that Itachi had so kindly painted targets on. He'd made it so that as they progressed their exercises that the target area would get smaller and smaller, and so far she had yet to miss any target.

Sasuke was about to explode with pent up anger. Not only had his brother invited himself along to train, but he was watching a civilian girl best him at the training that he'd picked. When a quarter of an hour later Itachi explained that he had to go do some work and left Sasuke had never been more relieved. The last thing he needed was to slip up and miss a target and have his brother report it to his father.

As soon as Itachi left Naruto began whining, "I'm bored."

Sakura looked at him and stopped throwing, "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Let's change training."

"You okay with that?" she questioned Sasuke.

"Depends on what you want to do instead," he answered.

She thought for a while, "I don't know. I'm not Kakashi." She pondered for a little while. "What would Kakashi do? Besides look at porn."

Naruto clapped his hands together bringing the other two's attention to himself, "We should do try being as sneaky as possible and go into one of those magazine stores and buy porn."

"You realize that that's just and urban legend that you can do that right?"

"Shut up teme, it's a good idea!"

"I bet you can't" Sasuke sneered at his bouncing teammate.

Sakura perked up, "Did I hear the word bet?"

Naruto groaned, "Lesson one, Sasuke-teme, Sakura is a compulsive gambler and you should never say anything about bets." Naruto grinned at their female companion.

"I am not a compulsive gambler," she stamped her foot.

Sasuke looked between his two teammates that he now suspected were crazy, "I bet you 20 bucks that you can't do it."

"Deal."

Sakura grabbed each boy by the arm and made her way to one of the civilian districts totally disregarding the fact that she had essentially proved Naruto right.

She pulled out two dollars, "I won't even use chakra," she promised and walked inside. She actually had no idea how she was going to do this. If there was one thing he shishou had instilled in her it was the love of gambling.

Luckily it seemed that the owner had left their kid who was younger that her at the till, which was hidden by the front wall. She went back picked up the magazine that had the biggest breasts and went to the till. She casually dropped it on the counter with her two dollars.

"You can't um buy," he began to blush and stutter.

"Oh, you're blushing," she cooed. The kid went even redder and thrust the magazine at her. She smiled at him as she took the porn mag out of the shop.

She presented the contraband to Sasuke who was standing and gaping at it before he hid it under his shirt. "Don't leave it out in the open," he hissed as he handed her the money.

She smiled and pocketed the cash, "Do you wanna try?"

"Not on your life," he responded as he stalked away from them.

Naruto watched her stare after him, "Please tell me you're not interested in him."

"Ew, no," she wrinkled her nose, "It's just that he took that magazine with him."

Naruto burst out laughing. She wished she could see the look on Itachi's face when he found his little brother with a pron mage.


	8. Chapter 7

And so the days continued in a rather similar fashion. Sakura and Naruto would wake up, train with Kakashi and Sasuke, take a D rank mission, train again, and then go home. All things were going well Sakura and Naruto had managed to get Sasuke to see them as teammates and almost friends and Sakura had been able to find the two best friends a job in a civilian bar named "The Ninja Hangout" which was luckily a place that no ninja would ever be caught dead in so there was no risk of being seen. The increase in funds had allowed the two time travelers to buy another bed for Sakura and fix up their apartment in general.

This is what led to a month after the forming of their team Sasuke showing up on the duo's door step late at night. It was pure chance that Sakura had worked herself to the bone in her after mission training session and had gone to sleep and that neither had work tonight at the bar. So when Naruto opened the door for their third teammate he suspected nothing was off.

"Teme? What are you doing here?"

Sasuke looked awkward standing in the doorway of the apartment of a teammate that he wasn't very close to. "Can I stay here for the night?"

Naruto glanced at the closed bedroom door which Sakura remained asleep behind. His mind was at war with whether or not he should let Sasuke stay there. On one hand if he didn't then Sasuke would probably never trust them. On the other hand if he found out that he and Sakura were living together there'd be no telling how he would react and who he'd tell. Plus there was Sakura's opinion to consider, but he didn't feel like waking her up.

He looked at little Sasuke. Who, yes, is little when Naruto compares him to his Sasuke, "Yea come on in I'll set you up on the couch if that's okay with you."

"Thank you." He didn't think that he had ever seen Sasuke look so relieved, past or present.

Naruto handed the kid some spare blankets and a pillow, "Make yourself at home. I'm going to bed."

"Hn."

Naruto looked over at his housemate and her new pet as he snuggled into his own bed for the night; she was probably going to be pissed at him in the morning.

Sasuke woke the next morning earlier than his normal wake up time to the noise of a door opening and closing. It took him a split second to remember where he was, but once he did he sat up to meet his host and instead found… "Sakura?"

Said pink haired girl looked less than excited to find a certain pre-teen on her couch and simply raised an eyebrow at him.

"What are you doing here?"

She looked at him blankly, "I live here."

"In Naruto's apartment?" he asked slowly, like the topic was confusing him. After all why would his female teammate live here instead of with her parents?

"Well with the amount of rent I pay and the cleaning and cooking I do it should really be my apartment, but for all intents and purposes it's both of ours apartment."

Sasuke was about to ask another question when he was interrupted by a cat meowing. It didn't have a bow so he couldn't be sure but, "Is that Tora?"

"What are you talking about this is Storm."

In all actuality it was the cat formally known as Tora. When Naruto and herself had earned enough money to start putting some in the bank Sakura had gone and rescued Tora before team Gai could find her and left a dead squirrel henged as Tora so the cat didn't have to go back to her mistress. Naruto had suggested that they named her after Kuarma, Sakura had refused and thus Storm was born.

Sasuke nodded dumbly not really believing her. She threw some clothes at him and changed the subject, considering that Tora was actually the property of the fire Daiyamo's wife. "These are Naruto's. Go take a shower and change. I'll get some breakfast together."

Sakura sighed and grabbed some ice from the freezer, put it in a bowl and added water. She cursed her roommate for not telling her about their current house guest and made her way into the bedroom.

She grinned to herself as she woke Naruto with her trademark ice water wake up. The boy in questions shot awake and rolled right out of bed and onto the floor.

"Good morning Naruto-kun."

Naruto's eyes widened as he tried to get away, that honorific only promised pain. All the while, in the shower Sasuke was oblivious the Naruto's screams of pain.

Five minutes later Sakura left the bedroom and put together a smile breakfast of eggs and toast with some fruit on the side. They'd need their strength because today was the day team 7 got their first c rank mission.

Sakura caught Naruto's eye as they made their way down the path away from the village. "Oh look a puddle of water. How weird. Considering it hasn't rained in weeks. I wonder how all that water got there."

She was actually proud that Naruto hadn't burst out laughing yet as he responded. "Hey Sasuke, let's go play in that no way suspicious puddle."

A strangled sound came from Kakashi's direction. These kids had no idea what the word discreet meant.

Sasuke knitted his eyebrows, "Dobe, I'm not going to play in a puddle on a mission."

They continued walking. "Bye puddle of water," Naruto called.

"Are you sure these kids are qualified to watch me," Tazuna grumbled. Kakashi didn't even bother to reassure him this time and the drunkard took another swig of whatever questionable substance was in his bottle.

Sakura was beginning to get slightly worried last time as soon as she stepped in the puddle the brothers had attacked and now… She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and slammed their employer to the ground as the Demon Brothers attacked her sensei.

The chunin kept running not even bothering to make sure that their target had really died and missed the chunks of wood that would have alerted them of their failure.

Sasuke grabbed a kunai and a shuriken, but before he could throw them Sakura kicked the legs out of one of the brothers causing him to fall to the ground and the other to be yanked back as well. Sasuke shot his shuriken at the chain and used his kunai to anchor it. Naruto stepped on the back of one and Sasuke on the other forcing them to remain still.

"You can come out now sensei," Sakura called out as she helped the drunken Tazuna off the ground.

Their sensei jumped down from the tree he was in. "Ma, Sakura-chan, you ruin all the fun. I was supposed to appear and surprise you all by being alive."

"I'm more concerned with the two ninja that just tried to kill us," she deadpanned, "Buy hey! That's just me."

"Sarcasm is unbecoming of a young lady, Sa-ku-ra."

"It's a good thing I'm only a child then. Ne? Kakashi-sensei?"

"Um guys. Your friendly banter is all well and good, but Sasuke and I have some moderately deadly ninja under our feet so if we could just, I don't know, do something about it that would be great," Naruto pipped up from his perch on the mist-nin.

Kakashi gave Naruto and eye crinkle and came over to do his bidding. "Demon brothers from mist. Chunin level." He crouched down next to the two and glanced over at Tazuna, "Now why would they be after someone like you. Especially when you didn't ask for protection against ninja only protection against bandits. Why, this makes this mission at least a B rank."

Tazuna looked uncomfortable as Kakashi began to tie the two chunin to a tree and sent one of his summons to inform a leaf shinobi.

Naruto snorted, "Do you really have to ask. They're obviously part of the fashion police."

And there went my intimidation factor, Kakashi thought.

"Dobe," Sasuke frowned, "Have you looked in a mirror recently."

Oh yes this was going to be a very long trip.


	9. Chapter 8

Kakashi was seriously thinking about killing himself. He was currently escorting a drunk, old man on a mission that seemed to be suspiciously getting higher and higher rankings and his team was fighting with each other. Well in actuality Sasuke and Naruto had paired up and were yelling at Sakura after she had made a comment about how jumpy they were. Unfortunately for the boys no matter what they said seemed to faze her which in turn made them more angry and the angrier they were the louder they got and the louder they got the more Kakashi contemplated suicide.

"At least we don't have large foreheads," Naruto taunted as he tried to get a rise out of his female teammate.

"They say a large forehead is a sign of intelligence. I can see by your small forehead that you lack normal human intelligence."

"At least I'm not a girl." Sasuke was running out of things to say.

"A good thing too. You'd make a very ugly girl."

The boys would screech in frustration, Tazuna would drink and Kakashi would sigh.

"At least I'm not a compulsive gambler," Naruto was sure he'd won this time.

Kakashi sighed again waiting for another one of Sakura's apathetic comments. "What the hell! I'm not a compulsive gambler." He actually put down his Icha Icha to look back at his students. Sakura's face was red with anger as she faced Naruto with hands on hips.

Naruto smirked. "Wanna bet?"

"Yes I want to bet!" She yelled.

"You do realize, Sakura, that this is exactly what a compulsive gambler would say, Sakura?" Kakashi interrupted.

Sakura puffed up her cheeks, "It has nothing to do with the fact that he said anything about a bet. It's because I need to prove his deluded self, wrong."

"As your teacher I need to know about things like this so that I can help you, Sakura. No student of mine should ever be plagued by the siren song that is gambling," he teased.

"What would you know about something that isn't porn?"

Naruto snickered as she rounded on her teacher hands on hips. Oh it was on.

"Icha Icha is a book full of intricate plot and developed characters it is not simply a book of smut."

"If by developed you're talking about their chests, then yes I can see what you mean. But that book is nothing but porn. I've read the back cover."

Sasuke looked horrified to find that his teammates had been correct when they told him that their Sensei read porn in public. Seeing Kakashi had stopped talking Sakura turned to Naruto.

"What kind of bet are we talking?"

Before Naruto could even reply, Kakashi had dropped to the ground taking Tazuna with him and instructing his students to do so as well. A large sword came spinning out of the forest and into the trunk of a tree in front of them. Zabuza jumped onto the blade. Naruto and Sakura shared a look, Zabuza wasn't supposed to attack until after they arrived at wave.

Sakura scrambled to her feet her facial expression molded into one of pure anger. "YOU!" The masked man raised an eyebrow. "Toddle your ass back into those trees. I have a bet to win, and you're early!"

Zabuza jumped off his perch, grabbing his blade on the way down and taking it with him. "I'm early? Says who little girl?"

"The fucking universe! That's who!"

Naruto sighed, well she wasn't wrong.

"You can't just come here and interrupt our group when we are about to make a bet," Sakura continued as she stomped closer to Zabuza, "Leave!"

In a flash Kakashi swooped forward and threw Sakura over his shoulder, efficiently separating her from the S-class missing nin. Sakura struggled over his shoulder.

"Let me go, Bakakashi! I'm going to kick his ass!"

Naruto started laughing, "Oh my kami. You really have a problem. You're such a compulsive gambler," he got out in between laughing.

"I'm not a compulsive gambler!"

Sasuke snorted, "You just picked a fight with a s-class nin, for the simple reason of interrupting a bet."

Kakashi tightened his grip on the struggling Sakura, "Will you guys take this seriously! That man is trying to kill us!"

"And I'm trying to kill him, but you won't let me go!"

"I see you have your hands full, Kakashi," Zabuza rumbled.

Kakashi gave the man his famous one eye smile. "Yes. I've spent the last 30 minutes seriously contemplating suicide."

"Let me take care of that for you." A water clone had appeared between Kakashi and the boys.

Kakashi's eye widened as he turned to face the clone. Before the clone even had time to move for his sword, Sakura lashed out with her legs hitting the clone in the back of the neck. The move would have normally shattered the target's vertebrae and thus effectively dispelled the clone.

Kakashi set Sakura down, "It's okay you guys I won't let anyone harm you."

Sakura barely caught him making a water clone and switching it with himself. She knew that her Sensei would be fine for the time being so she focused on her group.

"Protect all sides. Naruto take the left, Sasuke take right, and I'll take the front."

Without prompting the boys fell into position each taking a kunai in hand and one of Naruto's shadow clones guarding the rear. She knew that eventually Kakashi would need their help, but until then she had them all stationed appropriately. Naruto was on the left side because his left hand throwing skills were better than Sasuke's and attempting to throw kunai from a right hand while guarding someone on your right blocked your range of motion. Sasuke was on the right and not the center because Sakura needed to be front and center in order to lead. Plus, she knew that the side positions needed to be able to communicate to each other and even though she had made an effort to be this Sasuke's friend, he trusted and worked better with Naruto than with her.

Kakashi and Zabuza fought matching each other blow for blow. Currently equals because Kakashi couldn't get over his fear of something happening to his gennin. When Kakashi looked back at them, which was when he lost the upper hand. He'd looked back to check their safety and was momentary frozen with shock as he quickly analyzed their position.

He saw everything that Sakura had thought of and immediately knew that it was not some fluke. Each person's position had been carefully thought out. This was not the work of normal gennin. He knew that recently Sakura and Naruto had been watering down their skills with Sasuke and him. During practice and their small missions they acted like children and nothing like the two children that he'd fought with during the bell test. He had been reporting to the Hokage after every mission and had been told that he shouldn't worry, but now he was seriously starting to suspect something was up. He needed to get Itachi in on this when they got back.

Sakura saw Kakashi's eye as he realized that his suspicions about her and Naruto not being ordinary gennin was right. There hadn't even been time to warn him as he was trapped in a water prison jutsu. Kakashi yelled at them to run away, but they didn't listen.

Sakura made three shadow clones.

Zabuza observed her, "Shadow clones? Impressive for someone your age, but what do you think they'll do to me."

"Oh these?" She asked innocently as they clones pulled out three kunai a hand, "These aren't for you." Zabuza raised an eyebrow and Sakura smirked as her clones took their places by Naruto and Sasuke. "Naruto! Sasuke! Modified version of the bell test! I'll guard Tazuna."

Naruto, his clone and Sasuke surged forward and Sakura's clones closed in on Tazuna. In Naruto's sea of clones Sakura could see the exchange taking place. It took all of three minutes for the fight that cemented Naruto and Sasuke's friendship to take place.

Unlike in the past the second that Kakashi was released from his prison senbon needles stabbed into Zabuza. Sakura growled as Haku jumped down from the trees and began to introduce himself. The only thing Haku had been good for was showing Naruto he could harness the power of the tailed beast and giving Sasuke his sharingan. Sakura mused over the situation for a while and decided it was best if Sasuke waited to obtain the sharingan.

As Haku finished his introduction and made a reach for Zabuza, Sakura spoke up, "I've always wondered how Hunter Nins destroy the body, and now I get to see it."

Naruto realized what she was doing and played along, "Huh?"

She rolled her eyes, "Hunter Nins destroy the body on site which means that we get to watch."

She watched as Haku's body became rigid. This time Kakashi did not miss it either and when Haku made a move for the body starting the first sign of the teleportation jutsu he struck Haku in the neck with a Kunai. And with a quick fireball jutsu both nin were dispatched.

Because there had been no emotional attachment formed with Haku's death, Kakashi removed Zabuza's head and sealed it in a storage scroll for retrieving his bounty later.

Sakura dispelled her clones and the group made their way to the boat, as they got on Kakashi pulled Tazuna close, "When we get to wave, you are going to explain to me what the hell is going on."


End file.
